It almost sounds too good to be true: Transform old tires, carpet, and other polymeric trash destined for the landfill into readily useable fuel. This trash-to-treasure tale is no fantasy; it is precisely what three modern companies already are doing on a daily basis.
Vadxx, an eight-person firm headquartered in Cleveland, has perfected a technique that transforms discarded tires and waste oil into synthetic crude and natural gas. The oil is sold to energy marketers while the gas is reserved to fuel future processes. The company has multiple letters of intent to build large-scale units, including one from the Portage County Solid Waste Management District.
"This is one advanced energy concept that if we achieve our objectives the marketplace will overwhelm it because the capital costs are so small," explains CEO James Garrett.
Joseph Hensel, chairman of Akron-based Polyflow, says that what distinguishes his company from the others is the range of waste that the Polyflow process can utilize. "This is a stunning process designed to handle a truly mixed range of polymer waste," Hensel explains. Tires, carpet, PVC pipes and plastic children's toys that would otherwise clog up a landfill are broken down to oil that is sold to local blenders. For every ton of waste processed, the system yields .7 tons of fuel.
Polyflow is currently scaling up its pilot program to a unit that can handle two and half tons of waste per hour. "I'm hoping that you'll soon see this in every major municipality," adds Hensel.
Princeton Environmental uses a different technology to turn trash into fuel. Sorted solid waste is converted to synthetic gas in a process called gasification. That highly efficient gas is then burned in a turbine to generate electricity. The New Jersey-based company has plans to build its first U.S. power plant in Cleveland.
All three of these processes eliminate or greatly reduce the production of noxious emissions and carbon dioxide, making them far greener than the trash-burning power plants of yesterday.
Sources: James Garrett, Vadxx, and Joseph Hensel, Polyflow
Writer: Douglas Trattner